Thursday, June 30

Starfire Sketch

I really really really can't draw hair. It's a failing of my already meager art skills, and I picked a sketch subject just to face that whirlpool. I don't consider this sketch a triumph over hair, but a step in that direction.

Starfire here was introduced in the early '80s reboot of DC's Teen Titans, the sidekick supergroup. This was seen as DC's answer to Marvel's X-Men, which was beginning its ascent to THE franchise for Marvel for the next 20 years. I happened to get into regular comic reading just as New Teen Titans was launched, and I followed the book for a good while. Starfire -- the tall orange alien in a purple bikini -- may have had a great deal to do with that.

I should note that artist George Perez got around her giant head of hair (which he designed) by drawing it as an amorphous blob with random curls breaking its contours.